I was playing yet another game of FTL, getting very angry at the RNG as usual, when I stopped and thought about the story for a moment. In this game you play as a Scout of the Federation Fleet, who has managed to acquire some life changing data, and must travel to the other end of the galaxy to deliver this data by hand because, for some reason, E-mail doesn't exist in this universe. You need this data to stop the Rebels, who are somehow better equipped than the Federation. In fact this is the only game I can think of where the Rebels are the best equipped side. This also got me thinking. What games are there, where the rebels are the bad guys?

Rebels are almost always portrayed as a weak fighting force, being brutalized by some evil empire. The rebels only ever end up winning because they have either one troop who basically carries everybody, or a commander who's an expert at military strategy. This makes it a great choice for games, and is seen in games such as: Outcast, Freedom Fighters, Final Fantasy (4,6,7,8,12,13 etc), Xcom 2, Many Star Wars Games, Half Life 2, Most Assassins Creeds and many others.

When I tried to think of games where the rebels are the bad guys, I managed to come up with:

FTL
Bioshock: Infinite (Possibly)

and that's as far as I got. So now I ask YOU, what games do you know, where the rebels are evil?

TIE Figher

Best space sim ever made. Even better than Freespace 2.

Die rebel scum!

Star Wars: Empire At War
Tachyon: The Fringe

Just about every empire building strategy game features some types of rebel forces (Lords of the Realm, Knight of Honor, Crusader Kings etc)

edit: The rebels in those games are evil because they will rebel even if you try to run the place as benevolent and best you can.

Yes, but Freespace 1 is better than Freespace 2, so...

Well, the rebels are the enemy, but I seem to recall that the game indicates that you're fighting for the baddies. it's been a long time, though.

That was some pretty damn sweet animation, especially considering it was the work of one guy.

It's a very American culture thing to have the rebel or the individual prized over the government. Endless, endless American movies and shows have that same formula, and games follow along. It's a great example of the frontier kind of "freedom" America is founded on, for good or ill.

Now that so many more games are made in other countries I hope to see this shaken up.

Tropico Woha! Thanks for sharing. :)

And if the rebels are considered the bad guys, they're not called rebels but terrorists.

You missed Final Fantasy 2; the whole game is fighting against an evil empire.

Incidentally, the SaGa series has a couple empires in it that are not evil:
Romancing SaGa has an empire that is not evil, though it only controls part of the world.
SaGa Frontier 2 actually has an empire that one of the main protagonists (Gustave) builds; that empire isn't evil. Of course, it does fall apart after his death, but that's another story.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. When I first say this thread, the first thing I thought was the GLA from Command and Conquer: Generals. I think the Brotherhood of Nod from the other CnC games qualify.

Edit: There was also the Sons of Korhol from Starcraft.

Do the U-Guided citizens in Syndicate Wars count?

Not sure if they count as rebels but both factions in Farcry 2 are as bad as each other

I immediately thought of the Alterac-incited peasant revolt in Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, but a more prominent example would be the Yellow Turbans Rebellion in Three Kingdom: Fate of the Dragon. It spanned several early missions, and man, those rebels were a pain to deal with.